


how sweet dee got her nickname

by topnewt



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Codependency, Drug Use, Gen, High School, Mental Health Issues, Underage Drinking, mention of canon statutory rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-07-23 12:28:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7463232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/topnewt/pseuds/topnewt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somehow it has become the absolute definition of Dee Reynolds—a representation of where she stands within the gang, and thus life, held in the clammy palms of two delicate words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	how sweet dee got her nickname

**Author's Note:**

> so, i was like "i'm gonna write a cute fic on how dee got her nickname!" and this happened, and I have no idea how or why or what it is. But i spent 6 hours writing it so I'm posting it. It's my first always sunny fic, so be gentle and enjoy :)

            Dee doesn’t think the guys are quite aware, with the way the nickname slips past their vile tongues so often, what exactly they’re saying when they call her “Sweet Dee.” The name has drifted so far from where it sprouted so many years ago, its origin seems almost untouchable, its relevance enduring the limitations of time, like Jesus or Hitler. Through the years, it has lost all its meaning, becoming a hollowed-out thing, an un-squishable, universal presence, while simultaneously bearing the weight of all that is, has been, and ever will be, Dee.

Somehow it has become the absolute definition of Dee Reynolds—a representation of where she stands within the gang, and thus life, held in the clammy palms of two delicate words.

\--

Dennis had not always been terrible to Dee. In childhood, they were attached at the hip. Before their mother had picked a favorite, before she had started a life-long competition between her own two offspring, Dee and Dennis had no reason to not get along. In fact, they were readily supplied with endless motivation to stick together. They clung to each other in that massive, roofed void they were expected to call home. They were two neglected children who didn’t know they deserved better, knew nothing outside of themselves, not nurture nor comfort. They were four small hands grappling at the broken puzzle pieces all around them, desperately trying to fit them together, to make sense out of one damn thing.

That’s not to say they lived in complete harmony. They fought, as siblings do, with a violence adopted from their parents, who did nothing to hide their toxic relationship from their children—not the screamed vulgarities, not the hitting or slapping or scratching, not the thrown liquor bottles that shattered in a passionate blast of anger and glass against the floral wallpaper. But even when they couldn’t stand each other, they could not abandon one another. Neither had enough on their own to survive. Their codependency kept them wrapped around each other, like two strands of hair braided into one; it kept them safe, each twin born to protect the other. It was unhealthy, but vital; unorthodox and still the only thing in their lives that felt right.

Both of them broken—hacksawed straight down the middle by their parents’ cold, stiff hands before they’d even hit kindergarten—were, together, able to make one whole person. That’s why the universe had made them twins. Barbara had birthed two children, but she’d raised them as one.

\--

It took a couple years to take visible effect, but as soon as they started school and got exposed to the world outside of their own, their relationship began to dwindle and strain. And the mess of it only got more tangled and unmanageable the harder they tried to rip it apart, this connection they had.

Dennis’s vanity began to swell as soon as he realized there were things about him that were worth something. In the beginning, it grew out of his superiority over Dee. He had better grades than her, more friends than her, and their teachers always liked him better. Barbara finally started being nice to him, treating him like a son, and of course with the small supply of fondness the woman could muster going to Dennis, Dee became valueless to her.

And so Dee became cynical and hateful—she hated everyone and she hated herself. Where once the twins were able to find worth in themselves through each other, now one was worth everything and the other nothing. Once Dennis began to view himself higher than his sister, the dynamic, their balance, was tainted. To pull herself up, Dee had to bring Dennis down, but to remain as high as he felt he deserved to be, Dennis had to keep Dee low.

It was sibling rivalry at its most demented.

Slowly, the twins felt themselves becoming two different people. It was in their efforts to separate that their relationship became the twisted thing it is now, all the thick threads that tied them together getting caught up and knotted the harder they struggled to yank them loose. They were too entwined, had spent too much of their lives one half of the same thing. They had nothing to fill the holes they would rip open in themselves if they managed to break away from each other. You can’t tear one person apart down the middle without killing him.

As high school approached, it seemed that Dennis had decided if he had to share his soul with someone else, he would make damn sure his half was the superior one. So he began knocking Dee down, as far into the mud, as dirty and sad, as possible.

\--

When Dee found out Dennis stopped having feelings at fourteen, it was as if the camera lens through which she saw her brother had finally come into focus. It was at fourteen that he started having trouble making friends and connecting with people. It was at fourteen that his anger become explosive and dangerous if one got too close to the source while it was lit. And it was at fourteen that Dennis truly started being a despicable brother.

Although Dennis’s capacity for genuine kindness was pretty much snuffed out by the time he was twelve, he didn’t start attacking Dee with everything he had until freshman year. Dee didn’t understand the sudden shift at the time, but the more and more she looks back as an adult, the more it seems it all became inevitable the second they latched onto each other as kids.

Dee didn’t care that Dennis was losing all his friends. She barely cared about Dennis at all anymore, much his less his stupid, pussy problems. It didn’t give him an excuse to be a dickweed to her all the time. Fourteen hadn’t been great for Dee, either, but you didn’t see her taking it out on anyone.

Of course, when she shared this, Dennis went immediately on the defensive: “I’m not losing all my friends; what are you even talking about? If anything, I’m making even more friends, Dee! I’m the coolest goddamn kid in our whole class, and you’re only friend is Fatty Magoo, so how about you just shut it, alright?”

Dee shrugged, pretending the comment didn’t sting. She hadn’t yet built up the wall against Dennis’s insults that she has now, and back then it still felt like the sharp point of a knife digging into her chest every time her brother ragged on her.

“If you’re so cool, then why are you eating lunch with me?” she asked, shifting so her back brace would creak, attracting attention from surrounding students, none of which were associated with her or Dennis, but nonetheless people he wouldn’t want seeing him with the Aluminum Monster.

Dennis growled deep in his throat. “Fuck you, bitch,” he hissed.

“Suck a dick, pussybitch,” she spat.

“ _Jesus,_ wh—that’s sweet, Dee. Mouth like that, I’m surprised more guys aren’t chasing you,” and then he darted for the cafeteria doors, leaving his untouched plate behind him. Dee rolled her eyes and continued to pick distastefully at her own food. Dennis was like an injured dog when his ego was questioned, angry and on-edge, snapping at anyone who came too close to his wound. Even though Dennis’s delusions had him riding high and oxygen-deprived above the clouds, she took solace in knowing his self-esteem was just as fucked over as hers—maybe even more so.

\--

It wasn’t until later in the year when Dennis fucked the librarian, and all the kids he tried to brag to seemed more disgusted than awed did he start hanging out under the bleachers. At first, Dee didn’t get the appeal. She’d hidden under there at a football game once, and it was pretty gross. Empty pop bottles and Styrofoam cups were thrown into the shaded corners; cigarette butts were strewn like confetti over the dusty, gravel ground. Gum was stuck all the way up the pillars, squashed over years’ worth of stark and fading vulgarities written in markers and etched with a knife. And at one point where the structural beams reach for the earth was a rust-colored stain that Dee figured must be blood.

Dee didn’t care what Dennis did or why he did it. He was an asshole who didn’t deserve her attention, but if there was something good under there that she was missing out on, she wanted in on the action. So she followed him out to the football field during lunch one day. She waited five minutes after he slammed through the school’s back doors towards the field before she followed, so he wouldn’t hear her coming. She didn’t want him to know she was following him around if it turned out there was nothing worthwhile under the bleachers.

And of course there wasn’t. In one of the only thin patches of dry grass amongst the gravel, tucked so far under the structure their heads touched the seats above them, Dennis sat with Mac and Charlie. They were passing around a joint, eating their sandwiches and chips between hits—except Dennis, who had stopped bringing lunch a little after the librarian thing.

She wanted to leave. She really did. She wanted to turn around and walk away and let Dennis believe she hadn’t seen this, but it was just too good and the cackle was out of her mouth before she could stop it.

Dennis startled at the noise, hitting his head on the bleacher seat as he whipped his head around towards Dee, who stood, smiling, on the other side of the criss-crossing beams that held the bleachers up.

“Dee, what the fuck?” Dennis tried to yell, but it was strained, the words getting caught on a cough as smoke poured out of his lips.

“Since when do you hang out with these losers?” she asked, pointing to Mac and Charlie, who looked only mildly offended. Charlie even tried to give her a wave, which she ignored.

Dennis’s face was getting red, and his jaw was tight as his mouth moved around stutters and silent words. “Why do you care? Why are you here? Go—get away from me, you stupid bitch!” he yelled.

“Dude,” Mac breathed, long and drawn out, before falling into a laughing fit.

“Have you really gotten so pathetic that you’ve taken to following me around?” Dennis continued, “What’s wrong with you?”

“Oh, _I’m_ pathetic?” she barked incredulously, “You’re the one smoking pot under the bleachers with Ronnie the Rat and Dirt Grub!”

Dennis huffed. “Well, for your information, _Deandra_ , these are actually some pretty alright dudes, okay? So, uh… maybe you should put your judgements away, huh?”

“Oh, God dammit, Dennis, you’re such an asshole. Just admit these turkeys are the only people left in the school willing to hang out with you.”

Dennis face looked a wild mix of offended, flustered, and absolutely livid. “That’s just—that’s not— _true_ , Dee! Alright? So!” he said, voice sharp, before letting out a long, loud, angry groan and snatching the smoldering joint from between Charlie’s fingers. “Jesus, Dee, you’re ruining my high. Will you please just fuck off.”

“Fine!” she snapped indignantly, “Go suck a boner, dickweed.”

Dennis rolled his eyes like a smug piece of shit. “Oh, that’s sweet, Dee. Real classy,” he called to her as she stormed off, the stench of pot lingering in her nostrils.

-

It seemed now that Dee had found him out, he was ready to embrace his friendship with the weirdest kids in the class. Although he still tried to act like he was some sort of legend at school, from that point forward, Charlie and Mac basically lived at the Reynolds’ home. They never invited Dee to do anything with them, but she always found a way to butt herself in. She didn’t really want to hang out with those losers, but it was generally better than spending time with Fatty Magoo, so she sucked it up and forced her way into Dennis, Mac, and Charlie’s gang. Dennis continued to act like he didn’t want her around, but she could tell he always expected her to be there.

Once a dynamic between the four was settled, Dee noticed almost immediately how well Dennis fit in with these guys. He didn’t constantly look desperate for their approval—probably because he viewed the two of them to be much lower than himself, but he knew well enough not to make it too obvious—and he was able to be himself without a mask, without trying to make a character out of himself that he thought they wanted to see.

As much as Dee didn’t care about Dennis anymore, it was nice to see him a little less self-conscious. A little more like a human than he’d seemed since entering high school, since their relationship had become irreparably strained. Even though he was still a complete asshole and continued to shit on Dee for reasons she’d never be able to understand, in the way that no one could really understand Dennis.

\--

One Saturday night, they were all spread out in the basement, buzzing on the scotch they’d nicked from Frank’s liquor cabinet, playing some Super Mario game—well, Mac and Dennis were; Dee and Charlie were on the sidelines, watching, trading off the bottle. Dee shouted out directions as Mac and Dennis continued to throw their characters directly into death, and Charlie watched her in drunken amazement.

“Dee,” Dennis huffed impatiently, the controller shaking in his adrenaline-rushed hands, punching the buttons so aggressively with his thumbs they’d probably end up bruising, “Stop acting like you know how this game works.”

“I’ve beat you at this level before, jackass! _God,_ you’re such a fucking dick!”

Dennis grimaced, but it didn’t reach his eyes, something almost, maybe like fondness in them. “You’re real sweet, Dee. Thanks,” he said with that ever-present sarcasm.

Sometimes Dee felt like she could see the strings that still held her and Dennis together, weak and strung-out to nearly the breaking point, all tangled up in tight knots, stretching across the bare carpet between them. She remembered when the strings were made of silk, soft and clean and pure, when the two of them were young and not so cynical, too innocent to know something so comforting could be so damaging.

She knew the strings would never snap, that she and Dennis would never completely break, and she wondered if she actually, truly, wanted them to. A toxic relationship with your twin is better than nothing at all, right?

The television whined at them as Mac lost another life.

“Hey, Mac, gimme your remote. Come on, you’re blowing this level, you boner!”

“Your sweet talkin’s not gonna win me over, Sweet Dee. Sorry, bitch.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> sorry if this was awful. thanks for reading anyway :)


End file.
